


Quiet Time

by FuriousPoplar



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of tea and venting, Post-Pacifist Route, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7920268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousPoplar/pseuds/FuriousPoplar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papyrus was quiet, sometimes. He didn't think there was anyone he should let know, it just wasn't safe. So he smiled when he was happy, which he does his best to ensure is most of the time. But he also smiled when he was not, because he sort of had to, for his brother. Because of his brother.</p>
<p>Maybe he can forget the act, for just a day. Maybe nobody will mind.</p>
<p>(Not a chance.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Time

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself after last fic that I'd upload at least ONE thing without Chara in it next, which led to a dry spell of like thirty days where I just had nothing. Eventually, I got fed up, sat down and burned this out in one night so I could resume my trash train in peace.

                Papyrus was quiet, sometimes.

Next to nobody knew. All the townsfolk of Snowdin assumed he upheld his booming voice and inexhaustible enthusiasm every hour of every day. His flower friend, despite how much he seemed aware of without being told, assumed the same. Not even his brother knew. His brother, especially, didn’t know, because he couldn’t. Papyrus wouldn’t let him. Being quiet, and tired, and worn out, that was all Sans’ job, and it was one he was quite good at. Papyrus was supposed to be the cheery half of their duo, and he didn’t like the idea of falling behind. So he learned to be loud, always, even when he didn’t want to. He needed to keep it up, even when it stopped being who he loved to be and started being a lie. He felt lucky that he was a natural actor, amongst other things.

The first and only person to discover that Papyrus could be quiet was Undyne. It wasn’t that she had asked him, or guessed, or even wanted to know to begin with. But, after knowing her for just a few back-breaking weeks of training, he felt that if there was anyone he could let in on his little secret and get away with it, it was her.

More importantly, when it happened he was due for another lesson at Twelve PM sharp, and being late or a no-show wasn’t an option.

 

When he left home that morning, he kept his smile wide, his strides wider and his voice a roaring orchestra of passion, playing a passing how-do-you-do chorus for each passerby, every step of the way through Waterfall. He’d said hello to Woshua, and promised that he’d been keeping up on his showering. He’d said hello to Aaron, and asked him— rhetorically, he already knew the answer— if he had been working out. He’d said hello to Shyren, and promised her that he hadn’t overheard her beautiful singing. He’d even said hello with every ounce of his usual cheer to the sad, worn down statue in the rain (he stopped in front of it, for a brief moment, and considered telling it that he knew how it felt, even if only some of the time).

However, after he’d planted both boots on Undyne’s doormat he checked behind himself once, then twice, then a third time to ensure nobody else was around to witness what he was about to do. Satisfied by his lifeless surroundings, he let his shoulders drop down and his smile slide off his face. He thought he could hear it hit the dirt with a soft thump, like a bundle of laundry being dropped onto the floor; it seemed to know that it would be left there for a while.

He raised his red-gloved hand to knock and paused to admire the many sizeable dents in the metal. Undyne had no reason to knock on her own door, those where all from _him._ Because he was _strong,_ and _capable,_ and true royal guard material, and on any other day he’d feel very strongly that those statements were the truth.

“Sorry to let you down today, mister door. Erm, missus door. Or perhaps you’re a proud non-binary door, not content to lie down and conform to society’s skewed standards for what qualifies as normal. You’re a very brave door. But, the point is, you’re about to be sorely disappointed in me, and I’m trying to apologize for it.”

He knocked. It was a neat, orderly sound, bereft of excess. Nothing alike the usual thundering that graced every home he visited.

The door slid open, and in the maw of its frame stood Undyne, slouched with her weight on one foot in a rather non-heroic and vaguely irritated manner.

“Yeah? Can I— oh.” She raised an eyebrow and looked him up and down, not entirely convinced that the skeleton standing at her door wasn’t merely a stranger who knew nothing of her typically boisterous initiate.

“YOU! YOU ARE…!” she bellowed, standing up straight and menacingly checking her watch. “…Right on time. WELL THEN! No extra pushups for you, today. Just like every other day…” She gave a rough ‘ _Hmph!’_ of disapproval. “You should be late more often, it’d be good exercise! But, uh, that’s beside the point. Initiate Papyrus! Are you ready to begin!?”

He couldn’t help but crack a smile at her boundless ardor. “Hi, Captain Undyne. Yeah, let’s get started.”

She lurched back as if struck. She blinked, and then blinked again. “…Papyrus, are you okay?”

“Yes, Captain. I’m just not quite feeling myself this morning, if that’s okay. I’ll still follow your every order.”

She stared at him dumbly for a lingering moment. “No, no that’s not okay at all…” she trailed off, a worried catch in her voice. “Good god, you look like you were just given three months to live.”

He slouched exhaustedly, regretting his honesty. “It’s nothing, really—“

“No,” she interrupted, finding her mettle again. “Come inside. I’m going to make you some tea, and you’re going to drink it. Those are my orders for today.”

“What about training?” he protested.

“To hell with training, that can wait.” She put on her best ‘I will break my foot off in your ass if you question me again’ face when she spotted the disappointment in his eyes. “You can’t train like this. I’ve seen this before. New recruits come in and think they can burn the candle on both ends day in and day out, and at best they flake out and at worst they drop dead. Even _I_ get days off, you know. You gotta rest up today so you’re ready for tomorrow.”

“Huh.” He scratched the back of his neck, stopping when his vertebrae began making an unsettling clicking noise. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way…”

“Think of it that way from this moment forward, because otherwise, you won’t _survive_ long enough to make it into the guard.” She released her breath and let the hard edge in her tone dull away. “Now seriously, come inside. I can see mildew starting to build up on your skull.”

 

She practically dragged him over to the table and forced him down into his seat, albeit with a lot more care than she’d usually show. He twiddled his thumbs as she rushed over to the cabinet, pulling down a box of Golden Flower tea. Normally, she’d at least ask his preference and make a shallow attempt to pretend that any other option was a permissible choice, but Golden Flower tea doubled as Serious Moment tea. At least, it did to her, even if that was only because Asgore was Serious Moment Guy, and he burned through gallons of the stuff every day.

The kettle on its way, she returned to the table and sat herself opposite Papyrus, now with a sort of guilty look on his face.

“So…” she said, suddenly feeling unsure of herself. She was remembering, much too late, that she was usually pretty bad with this kind of stuff. “What’s up?”

“It’s nothing, let me assure you. I’m only having an off day.”

“Yeah, I can tell! _Why_ , though? What’s wrong?”

He sighed. “It’s my…” he trailed off and slowly grew into a grimly stubborn sort of expression. “It’s my own problem, not yours. I shouldn’t trouble you with it. Heck, I’m already starting to feel better!” he tried, vainly, to puff out his chest and firm up his posture. “SEE? ALL BETTER! WE CAN STILL DO TRAINING TODAY. I’M OVER IT NOW—“

Both the whistling of the kettle and his own vicious coughing fit cut him off.

“Owie…”

“Don’t _lie_ to me to try and deflect the issue,” she started with a glare, rising up from her seat with both palms flat on the table. “I get enough of that already, okay?” She walked back over to the kitchen and began preparing the tea, trying to ignore the crack that had strained her voice, moments ago.

 

She returned with a blue, steaming and highly beloved fish-shaped mug in her hands, and set it down in front of Papyrus. He did his best to ignore it as she walked back to her seat.

She hazarded a smile, but it ended up awkward and uneasy. “Drink up, punk.”

“Thanks for the tea, Captain.”

What was left of her smile withered away, ousted by a frown. “You don’t have to call me ‘Captain’. I have a name, you know.”

“That is true. Thanks for the tea, Undyne.” He took a sip, mostly to humor her. It was, in fact, quality tea, although he wasn’t particularly fond of the stuff to begin with.

She continued frowning, more visibly now. “Papyrus, tell me what’s wrong. I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, and that you probably don’t hold our relationship in the same regard as I do, but as your _friend_ , I want to help. Failing that, then at the _very least_ , as your trainer, and your—“she hesitated, for the briefest moment. “Your future commanding officer, I want to help. I don’t like to see my friends, or my soldiers down in the dumps unless they’re digging around for something cool.”

He looked up at her, taken aback by her sudden candor. “…Okay,” he buckled, “I’ll tell you.”

He took another sip of tea and a deep breath. “It’s my brother. He’s the reason I’m feeling like _this_ , today. It’s not his fault, of course!” he hastily amended, “But… the past few years, he’s become so _negative_. Nihilistic, even. He’s stopped caring about himself and all his goals entirely. Whenever I ask him why, he either lies to my face and says he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, or else just… stares at me, like he can’t believe that I really don’t see this _thing_ that’s holding him back. I keep trying to help him, and cheer him up, but it just doesn’t _work_ , and I’ve tried everything. I…”

He stopped to catch his breath, and to find the will to keep talking.

“I honestly, truly despise it to say, but I’m not sure if he’s going to get better. I don’t know what I can do for him. I’m trying my hardest to keep an eye on him and find out what’s wrong, but it’s somehow just not enough. Some days, it’s so bad that he can’t even get himself out of bed. I almost feel as if by now he should have…” he froze up for a moment. When he snapped out of it, he simply shook his head and looked back down to the table. “ _Something_ is keeping him going. Some days, everything is okay, and it’s like nothing had ever been wrong to begin with. Sometimes, he’s like that for weeks. There’s _something_ , at least, that still matters to him. And I’m caught between hoping and being terrified of the idea that it’s _me_. The days he’s happiest seem to be when I’m giving him a hard time or banging on about some new dream of mine. Heck, it made his whole week when I told him that you had agreed to start training me, even if he tried to play it down. He’s a good brother, he really is, and I love him to pieces and I’m proud of him for what he’s capable of, even if not for what he actually _does_ , but…”

He stopped for a breather again, and to drink some more of his tea. It was the slightest bit colder, now.

“I don’t want a good brother, okay? I want him to be _happy_. I’m sick of him acting like it’s okay for him to be withering away more and more with each day that passes. I’m sick of him lying to me about _everything_ , because he thinks I’ll be better off in the dark. And I’m so, so horribly sick of acting cheerful when I’m not. But it feels like he’s killing himself so he can watch me smile, and now I’m scared to frown. _I’m_ happy, really, I am, but I can’t do it all the time. On his good days, it’s easy to pretend I have nothing to worry about and just— let go, you know? Scream and shout and jump all over and boast about how great I am and how great he could be. Be the person I want to. But when I can’t ignore it, I have to _fake_ it, because if I slip up for even a moment, he’ll know it was because of him, and I don’t like to think about how he’d take that. So I try to convince him that’s I simply haven’t noticed anything wrong, and I guess I’m hoping that my good attitude will start rubbing off on him, the same way his attitude… sometimes rubs off on me.” He looked down into the half-empty cup at his murky, brown reflection and said nothing more.

Undyne stared back, speechless.

“I’m sorry to drop all that on you.”

“No, no” she assured, “It’s fine. You… uh… really sounded like you needed to get that out. And I’m glad that I could help with that.”

He looked back up from his tea and smiled. “That means a lot to me, thank you.”

“No worries, man. You shouldn’t have to lie your way through life like that and act as if everything is okay, that’s just plain bad for you.”

He sighed. “Not much else I can do, though.”

 

She shifted uncomfortably on her chair. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why didn’t you lie to _me?_ ”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you spend all day faking it so that your brother will be happy and so that nobody will worry, right? So why not lie to me, as well? Why drop the act?”

He furrowed his brow, lost in thought. “I’m not sure. I guess I felt that I didn’t have to, that you would either understand or else simply not mind. I needed a rest, and you were the only one I could trust to know that.” He looked at her with a glimmer of wistful hope like a dog waiting to be pet. “That’s what cool best friends are for, aren’t they?”

She gave a wide, toothless smile. “Yeah, pretty much.”

 

 

 

A year passed, and as combat lessons turned into cooking lessons, Undyne had essentially forgotten Papyrus was capable of being quiet. They still talked, time to time, about his brother, and how he was holding up, but Papyrus had nothing more to offer on the subject but optimism— genuine optimism, at least as far as she could tell. If he was still pretending, he had become frighteningly good at it.

The next time Papyrus was quiet, he wasn’t expecting it.

Today, his brother had woken up before he’d left the house, and he actually managed to get quite the conversation out of him, with a record number of skeleton puns involved, so that already had him in a legitimately fantastic mood; enough that when he was preparing his now traditional bone gift for Undyne, he brought out one of his finest, reddest, fanciest ribbons to wrap it with. Finally, he thought, despite the rocky past couple of months, things were starting to look up. _One_ good day wasn’t exactly the sign of a new trend, granted, but it could inspire hope, at least.

When he made his walk to Waterfall for the day’s lesson, his smile, voice and strides were all real enough. His how-do-you-do’s were each sincere and inspiring in their own individually tailored ways. His knock on the door was a roaring, barbarous crash, and it left a respectable pock-mark in the metal. Proudly, he stood with his scarf billowing in the gentle breeze, and his boots slowly filling with marsh-water (Although, his scarf was too short to billow the majestic way he wanted, and his boots were full of holes. He reflected that his boring, regular clothes were completely non-befitting to someone as irregular and astounding as himself.)

Seconds ticked by. The door didn’t open.

He furrowed his brow and dexterously flicked out his pocket watch— Twelve PM, on the dot, excluding the few moments that had passed after he had arrived. Confused, he looked around and listened carefully, wondering if perhaps she was already out back and waiting for him.

The sound of someone crashing out of the bedroom and murmuring a rather colorful string of expletives turned his attention back to the front door, now sliding open. Leaning against the frame was Undyne, with heavy bags under her eyes and a sullen expression on her face. “…We had a lesson today, didn’t we?”

“YES! WE WERE GOING TO TAKE A DARING STEP FORWARD AND INTRODUCE MEATBALLS INTO THE USUAL RECIPE.”

She muttered something nasty under the breath. It wasn’t directed at _him_ , necessarily, rather at the world as a whole. “I’m sorry, I forgot. I’ll… uh… just gimmie a minute, ‘kay? I’ll go get the kitchen cleaned up and… I’ll be right back.”

His smile curdled and he dropped his jovial tone. “I think you should take the day off, Undyne.”

Her eyes widened momentarily, surprised at his voice. She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s fine, dude. I just got a bit of a headache, or I didn’t sleep well last night, or something.”

“We’re not training today. You need a rest.” He spoke with an overbearing air of finality, as if he’d brought down the gavel and sentenced her to life.

He was hoping she’d defy him for the sake of defying him and bark back something like, “Was that an order?” or “Like hell we aren’t!”, but instead she sighed in relief, feeling ten tons lighter.

“Oh thank god,” she groaned.

This was worse than he thought. “May I come in?”

“Yeah, yeah. Please do.”

 

He stepped past her and led the way, gesturing to an empty seat at the table. “I’ll make us some tea.”

She forced a short laugh and a grin. “Hey, I guess you’ll be getting some practice today after all.”

He said nothing, focused on trying to remember where she kept her kettle. He opened the cupboard and didn’t hesitate to choose the box of Golden Flower tea. Frankly, he wasn’t sure why she even stocked the other kinds— possibly as a trap, meant to weed out the unworthy.

When the tea was done, he returned to the table and set one cup down in front of Undyne, who had at some point swallowed her pride and sat down. He placed the second cup on the other side of the table and took his seat.

“In all fairness, you do sound as though you didn’t get much sleep, and also that you have a headache,” he began, looking sadly at the teacup she wasn’t paying any interest to. “But I’ve a feeling that there’s more to it than that.”

She chewed the inside of her lip, weighing the options available. Deflection seemed both hypocritical and futile— not a chance he’d let this slide. “Good to see you’re as sharp as ever...”

“What’s the matter, Undyne?”

She caved under the weight of his concern, gently shaking her head and taking a lengthy sip of her tea, reveling in its unpleasantly hot, yet not quite painful temperature. “Did I ever tell you about Dr. Alphys?”

He scratched his chin. “I don’t believe so. I may have heard my brother mention them, once or twice. They’re the royal scientist, correct?”

“Yeah, she is. Damn good at her job, too, but there’s not a chance in hell she’d ever believe it. She’s not just the royal scientist, though, she’s also… a very good friend of mine. A very, very good friend of mine. And, if you’re wondering why you’ve never seen her around here, that’s because the idea of meeting new people seems to scare the lights out of her, for some reason, along with speaking to anyone, leaving her lab or even just continuing to exist at all.

“My point is she doesn’t like herself, if that wasn’t obvious. I don’t know why. I think she’s hiding something, or a bunch of things from me, and even though it sure wouldn’t be hard to strong-arm her into fessing up, I really, really don’t want to do that to her. So instead, whatever skeletons she has in her closet—“ she stopped dead in her tracks and slapped her forehead. Papyrus, respectfully, stifled his chuckle.

 “Goddamnit,” she practically growled. “As I was saying, whatever secrets she has continue to eat her alive from the inside, and she shuts herself in her lab more and more every day. Up until last night, I hadn’t seen her in person for _weeks,_ and on top of that, fate figured it’d be worth a hoot if she hated answering the phone, too. So, usually, all we do is maybe text back and forth for an hour or two each night, if that. And last night, our conversation took this… weird sort of turn. Like, her messages starting feeling _wrong_ , as if there was some other meaning behind them that I wasn’t seeing. She seemed… I don’t know, remorseful, or something, like she knew something I didn’t and felt I’d be happier not knowing. More so than she’s usually like that, I mean. And… it’s about one in the morning when I’m finally getting into bed, and she messages me to say goodnight or whatever. And I said, ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow!’, and few minutes later all I got back was, word for freaking word, ‘No, you won’t. I’m sorry.’”

She slouched in her seat and rested her head against her palm. “Doesn’t sound very good, does it?”

“No, I can’t say that it does.”

“Yeah. And— I mean, she’s come pretty close to… you know what… in the past, and there have already been a couple scares— hell, that’s how I met her in the first place— so when I saw that, I tried to message her back and ask her what she meant, and I was begging her to just please respond and this and that, but she’d already gone offline. So there I was, trying not to hyperventilate and put my boots on and get a water bottle filled so I could even make it there and back, and the whole time I’m praying that she’s still _alive_ that I’m not already too late.”

“Was she… is she okay?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s fine,” she chuckled, weakly. “I ran my ass off down there and damn near broke her door down, and she was A-Okay. Said that her phone’s reception has been having trouble and that it went down just before she could send another message and explain. Well, she said that _eventually_ , after about twenty minutes of trying to get it through to her that I wasn’t mad, and that I was just happy that she was okay, and that no, I don’t hate her now, and no, I don’t want to never see her again. And hey, she was _probably_ telling me the truth. Who knows? But at first, when I told her what I thought she was going to do, she didn’t say, ‘No, I would never do that!’ or anything. Instead, she just gave me this look of shame. Like she was saying, ‘No, that’s not what it was _this_ time. No, when that happens, I won’t want to burden you, and I won’t leave a warning. You’ll just wake up one day and I’ll be gone and you’ll never have had the chance to tell me—” she cut herself off, biting her tongue.

“…Never had the chance to tell her what?”

She peered left and right and scratched at her arm. “You… You can keep a secret, right?”

“Of course.”

“I’m serious about this, you pass on to _anyone_ what I’m about to tell you and you’re as good as dead. Understand?” Despite the threat, she sounded pleading.

“I won’t dare tell a single soul.”

She sighed again, much rougher this time. “I like her. No, screw that, I’m in love with her. And I’m terrified to tell her. Because what if a human falls down, and I can’t handle them? What would she do if she lost me? I know she cares about me, to _some_ extent at least, but she doesn’t… believe that she deserves me, or anybody, or something stupid like that. I want to tell her so badly, but I have no idea how to do that in of itself, never mind trying to tell her in such a way that she doesn’t think I’m just lying and taking pity on her, or that she’s tricked me into loving her or who knows what other sort of excuse she’d come up with so she can act like she doesn’t deserve to be happy. Or, hell, I don’t even know if she feels the same way! So then she’ll run away or _worse_ , and I’ll have lost one of the only friends I’ve ever managed to make.”

Papyrus stared into his tea, no longer steaming and still full to the brim. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she is, too. But I can’t blame her. Even if I wanted to, it’d just make things so, so much worse. It feels like I’m walking on eggshells that _want_ to be broken.” She gave a hollow, cynical smirk. “You know, she reminds me a bit of your brother, in that way. They’d make awful, co-dependent friends.”

 

“Hey…” she started, “Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. It’s nice to have someone who’ll listen, you know?”

“Think nothing of it. I still owed you for last time we had to call off training.”

She winced and scratched at the back of her head. “Yeah… uh, sorry about that, by the way. I know you were probably excited to—“

He stopped her. “Oh, shush. You said it yourself; you can’t burn the candle on both ends. If you’re having trouble, you deserve rest, and you deserve help. I’m just glad that I could be here to comfort you.”

 

She tried to hide her smile, and largely failed. “Hey,” she said, raising her cup. “Here’s to hoping they get better.”

He raised his tea as well. “Here’s to hoping.”

 

 

 

The next time Papyrus felt the need to be quiet, several years had passed. A lot had changed. He had moved, along with every other monster. He had made some new friends (A lot of new friends, actually, and a decent chunk of them were people who he’d never had the chance to meet before). The surface was a vastly different place, one that he never honestly believed he’d ever get to see, much less live in.

He’d persuaded his brother that they ought to go camping and properly experience the great outdoors. It hadn’t been particularly difficult; Sans was, if nothing else, good at playing along to his whims. He’d even hauled out and wiped all the red paint off his old telescope. Papyrus had then gone and rounded up Undyne and Alphys, for good measure. It had been a long day of throwing things into the camp fire and watching them burn, telling spooky stories and really, _really_ inappropriate jokes (the kind that made him tremendously glad that there were no children around to hear, for once). Sans and Alphys had since retreated to their tents and fallen asleep, and now it was just him and his old trainer, sitting by the dying fire and poking it with whittled down, charred-tip sticks to keep it going for a few extra minutes.

“Today was nice,” Undyne declared, jabbing chunks of ashen bark off one of the logs. “I’m glad we got the turbo-nerds out in the dirt, for once.”

He watched a slab of ash flake off and scatter into the cool breeze, blowing into his face and stinging faintly at his eye sockets. “Yeah.”

“Oh. Did something happen with Sans, again?” she muttered, her face softening into her closest approximation of concern as she stole a glance towards his brother’s tent.

“No, nothing,” he reassured, “I promise. I’m only tired. Sleepy tired, I mean, not ‘I’m slowly being ground into nothing by the merciless hands of fate’ tired. It’s about, what, midnight? Or later? Quite far past my bedtime.”

“Ah. I thought we were gonna have another super-serious heart-to-heart sorta moment.”

“No, not tonight. Maybe not… ever again.”

She reeled back and sputtered in mock-offence. “What, I’m not a good enough listener for you? Am I not a master of emotional subtlety!?”

“Undyne, your emotions bear all the subtlety of a bundle of shotguns tied together with Christmas lights— potentially deafeningly loud and obnoxious, but until someone goes and plugs the lights in and pulls three separate triggers, it’s all surprisingly easy to hide in a baggy winter coat.”

“That’s… weirdly touching?”

“Little known fact, but needlessly unorthodox and yet uplifting metaphors are a long time mastery of mine.”

They shared a snicker.

“That isn’t why, though. I’m a little afraid to say it out loud, in case I jinx it somehow, but I think that Sans is…” he looked up from the dimming fire. She could see now that he was smiling a worn, hopeful smile. “I think he’s getting better. For good. I’m not certain if it was getting to the surface, or his new friends,” he paused, unsure if he should revel in or resent the relentless onslaught of puns he’s been forced to endure, as of late. “Or maybe something else I don’t know about, but he seems like he’s found… peace, I suppose. He’s still worn out and just plain tired, all the time, like someone’s had him running for the last hundred years and he’s still trying to catch his breath, but he isn’t miserable anymore. He actually _cares_ about his own life again. He cares about his friends, and not just _me._ It feels like, for the first time in ages, that smile of his is real.

 

“How about Alphys? Obviously, you two have come a long way…” he gestured knowingly towards the golden band on her ring finger. “But has she been feeling any better?”

She looked at her ring and smiled, still having trouble believing that it’s there. “It’s… it’s a slow process. But, yeah, she has. I guess I really am training her, in a way. It’s hard, sometimes, trying to be the person she needs me to be, and making sure that she’s being honest about her feelings, but we’re getting somewhere. There hasn’t been any more… incidents. She isn’t always beating herself up over every little mistake, anymore. And she’s become so much more assertive, and confident. She believes in herself now, however hesitantly.” She cracked a short chuckle. “Did I tell you that she went and reconnected with a couple of old friends, recently?”

“No, I don’t believe so. Who were they?”

“A couple of chicks a few years younger than us, looked like polar opposites and acted like clones. Apparently, they used to look up to Al as a big sister or some such, but once the whole…” she waved her hand in a lopsided circle, “nightmares-in-the-basement situation started, she ended up falling out of touch. I didn’t prompt her to do this, by the way, and the two girls didn’t contact her, either. She called them one day and asked if they wanted to hang out some time, all on her own.”

“Wait, _called_?”

“Called! With her voice, in real time, and she didn’t even stutter! And yeah, I guess it’s sort of patronizing to freak out over simple stuff like that, but I’m… I’m just so proud of her, and how far she’s come.”

Papyrus squinted to try and get a better look at the liquid welling up at the bottom of her eye. “Are you crying?”

“What? Uh, no. I got ash in my eye.” She lied, badly.

“Sure you do.”

“Like you’d know, you don’t even have eyes!”

“That may be true, but I do have tears of pride, and they don’t show up because I have ash in my eye-sockets. Unless I happen to be very proud of said ash.”

“Aw, stuff it.” She pouted. Papyrus smiled, pleased with himself. The fire dimmed, growing redder.

 

“You know, it’s funny,” she began with a smirk, looking up at the sea of stars above them, “We went through all the trouble of keeping them going long enough to get out here and give them the opportunity to see stuff like _this_ , and they go and _miss it_ for sleeping on some stiff old air-mattress.”

He sighed, wistfully. “Love truly is a fruitless labor. Still, at least we’re here to see it.”

“…Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s enough.”

The fire finally choked itself out, reduced to the pale glow and dry popping of whatever embers were still left. They both silently agreed that was their cue to call it a night.

They’d light it back up again in the morning.


End file.
